Country: Wales
Swear to god if another person says willian is on 200k+ a week.
He is on 100k a week.
100k a week plus a fat signing bonus which balances out to 220k.
Not exactly a lie is it
Swear to god if another person says willian is on 200k+ a week.
He is on 100k a week.
100k a week plus a fat signing bonus which balances out to 220k.
Not exactly a lie is it
Even if the base wage is 100k, that's just too much for a player of his age and profile. Specially when he had Pepe, Nelson, Saka (later when moved to the right) as options for RW.
Imagine paying 200k a week for a rotational player or thinking that he'd be better or have more upside than Nico.
The point is: We can't have players like him and Cedric on high wages. Soares has not been as bad as Willian, but that's 70k on a player that will be impossible to move if his legs go. We need to do better than this.
A younger option to Soares, on lower wages, would at least give us a chance to move said hypothetical player on, something that just won't happen to neither Cedric or Willian. They'll be here until the end of their contracts.
100k a week for willian at the time was excellent business, coming off the season he had nobody can deny that. Hindsight is wonderful but I actively dislike people who simply use hindsight on a constant basis when players don't perform.
Like at the time it was a good deal, end of story, not a reason to lambast the club and Arteta.
Tell me what is wrong with having Cedric as backup to a starting right back for 4 years?
No it wasn't, literally 99% of the fan base were against it. Of course it's a reason to criticize the club, the writing was on the wall there and we still pushed through and now are stuck with him.
There's a reason why Chelsea and other clubs did not want to give him a 3 year contract and we were the only suckers that did.
Absolute load of tosh. The only thing that people were against was the 3 year deal, and that's the only way we couldve got him. As a player and coming off the season he had for Chelsea nobody can deny it was a good addition to the squad. End of story bro, look at the season he had for Chelsea and tell me its a **** signing at the time. You cant.
As for Cedric it's different to the players you mentioned due to Cedric being a competent backup at full back. Mustafi isn't a competent anything.
Let's be real you'll just say anything to bash Arteta and the club because you have an agenda. Why not just chill out, support the club, stop being a poo bag.
You’ve given me a wobble now. I don’t think the EL is in the bag at all.Can’t believe he’s still here if I’m honest.
I strongly disagree it's a transition they need to back arteta and see where the club is in a couple of years. Sometimes u need to take a step back and see the big picture.Transition backwards it seems. If the Kroenke's want to safeguard their investment, they would be wise to replace Arteta and also revamp the management team at Arsenal.
To me when it comes to Willian, I was mildly pro the signing at the time. My gripe was more with the contract length than anything.
At the time we signed Willian we did need a more experienced wide man / AM. Who were our options there? We didn't have a real 10 in the squad. There was a real lack of experience in the squad in terms of wide men. Saka, Nelson were both kids. Ödegaard wasn't here. Pepe lacked experience / consistency. ESR was injured / not considered anything more than a promising kid. Martinelli was a kid with a long term injury. All kids apart from Pepe who was still a developing player himself. Experience was needed.
Adding a high quality, PL experienced player like Willian to the mix did make sense at the time, I'd strongly argue.
It's fair to criticise Arteta for signing him in hindsight and Willian for his performances. He's been underwhelming overall, but not awful. That's my issue.
People massaging his signing on fee into his wages to make it look worse and saying some of his assists aren't 'real' because they were easy passes is where it gets silly and agenda driven.
Every decent player gets a big signing on fee when they move on a free. Most don't get it added into their weekly wage by the fans.
I could also go through Özil, Fabregas' and Cazorla's assists and start knocking off any simple passes off their record, but that would be ridiculous, the same way it should be for Willian.
My issue here is that Arteta seems to have been caught by surprise by ESR, Saka and Pepe’s development this season.To me when it comes to Willian, I was mildly pro the signing at the time. My gripe was more with the contract length than anything.
At the time we signed Willian we did need a more experienced wide man / AM. Who were our options there? We didn't have a real 10 in the squad. There was a real lack of experience in the squad in terms of wide men. Saka, Nelson were both kids. Ödegaard wasn't here. Pepe lacked experience / consistency. ESR was injured / not considered anything more than a promising kid. Martinelli was a kid with a long term injury. All kids apart from Pepe who was still a developing player himself. Experience was needed.
Adding a high quality, PL experienced player like Willian to the mix did make sense at the time, I'd strongly argue.
It's fair to criticise Arteta for signing him in hindsight and Willian for his performances. He's been underwhelming overall, but not awful. That's my issue.
People massaging his signing on fee into his wages to make it look worse and saying some of his assists aren't 'real' because they were easy passes is where it gets silly and agenda driven.
Every decent player gets a big signing on fee when they move on a free. Most don't get it added into their weekly wage by the fans.
I could also go through Özil, Fabregas' and Cazorla's assists and start knocking off any simple passes off their record, but that would be ridiculous, the same way it should be for Willian.
I think that is a fair comment in some ways but we need a change of culture. Arteta has tried to do that to best of his ability and has not replaced the whole side and been able to spend massive money. I think he has been quite ruthless though he has also tried to work with the players he has like xhaka Pepe. He had brought in some decent additions while also bringing on the youth. Even the much maligned Willian in a poor season has produced more than Özil did for the last 18 months.There definitely has been a culture at Arsenal to fix, but the problem is it is fine for Pep or Mourinho at super-rich clubs that can throw hundreds of millions away here and there by marginalising big assets, flogging them off, and replacing them with expensive replacements in a compressed period of time. At other clubs, including ours, there is a pragmatic balance to be found. We can’t afford to depreciate assets through an aggressive pathway without consequences felt financially in a way City or United wouldn’t.
A lot of this I think is minimising depreciation of assets you want to get rid of mid-season. Quietly just get things done ruthlessly and efficiently during the transfer windows. You can see how Mourinho is struggling at Spuds because he would like to turnover around six players in his first team squad asap, but he can’t, and his lack of flexibility is resulting in a nightmare for Spuds where assets have been depreciated left rotting on the bench a lot. I’m not saying Arteta is as bad as Mourinho in terms of rigidity, but it is the subtlety of understanding Arsenal cannot do exactly the same things a club like City can.
The assist thing is silly, tbh. Yeah, KT did a lot of the work for one of them, as did Auba... but Lacazette made his last goal and it was a simple pass from Nico. If you're counting one, you have to count the others imo.
What bugs me with Willian is he doesn't really pass the eye test. He's had two games where he looked the part, Fullham and Leicester, but those were the exceptions to the rule of him being mediocre at best..
They way he's been playing is just not what the team needs, he doesn't run, is not really taking on players... Big L for the club.